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Almost eight in ten sellers who went on to sign up with online agent eMoov looked up the firm on a review site first.

eMoov conducted a survey asking over 2,000 of their sellers how they had heard about the company.

Almost one third (29%) cited word of mouth while in total, 78% of sellers checked out the agent via a site such as TrustPilot or allAgents.

In other high value purchase decisions, 62% of respondents said that they trust friends’ recommendations, while 58% trust a review site in such decisions.

eMoov CEO Russell Quirk said: “The former pillar of the estate agents’ window, that the high street still cling to in terms of providing a competitive advantage over the online sector, is no longer an effective medium from which to secure a customer.

“Many companies claim they have great customer service, but under closer scrutiny they often fall at the first hurdle. It isn’t about fabricated reviews and having shiny review site logos on your home page.

“It’s a culture that starts at the top of the company and flows downward. When done properly, it not only results in happy customers but repeated and ongoing business.

“Vitally, a genuine approach to great customer service ensures lower acquisition costs and far better unit economics. In contrast, some of our competitors are realising that no matter how much money they throw at marketing, if your reviews are poor, potential clients won’t be persuaded to transact.

“Treating people fairly, providing a great service and truly committing to outstanding customer service is far more cost-effective than any marketing or advertising activity.”

From the man who has spent millions of investors money predicting stellar growth of the market sector as a whole (to around 16% by next year if I remember correctly), rubbishing the full service model and local knowledge only to can the full centre-only model and set up ‘local experts’, be hit by ASA rulings he was misleading consumers and, is currently sitting sitting with an impressive 0.3% UK market share.

Interestingly, in the last couple of weeks, the call-centre/ hybrid agents market share sector as a whole has fallen off a cliff, from 4% to just 2.15% this morning. Another well known and much loved call-centre agents market share has also seen a sudden and inexplicable* drop to just 1% with thousands of listing magically disappearing.

The tipping point was supposed to have been mid 2016, 9 months ago! It was predicted when the sector had expanded to a claimed 5%. Now the word is out the public are shelling out for nothing more than an advert on the internet with a 1:419703 chance of being spotted the public is saying “no thank you very much we’ll stick with what we know and who we know”
Emoov don’t have enough properties to be noticed; based on their listings for everywhere they do have a listing there are two areas where they don’t.
They need to spend more cash and win 3x as many instructions just to have a passing presence. As you point out loss leading your way to victory is an expensive game, the internet costs far more than any £/sqft zone A I know of.

The review system needs to be ‘reviewed’ ..the online agents have taken this part of the business to a new low. Would trustpilot let a holiday company put reviews of how good the holiday was when the couple in the office booked the holiday????

‘We would recommend PurpleHolkidays every time for holidays. . We called them, they took our money and we are going on holiday next month..Amazing …not sure if we are going in a dingy or a concorde yet but hay hoe,,it was £200 cheaper then a dodgy, reputable holiday company. …’

Anybody know offhand what the ‘true cost per sale’ is for emoov? This to my mind should be the total gross charged so far to people listing plus total investors money spent divided by the number of completed sales. Then we would have a figure that could be more realistically compared to the ‘no sale, no fee’ model